


I Need to See a Man About a Lieutenant

by That Hoopy Frood (That_Hoopy_Frood)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Adventure, Character Study, F/M, Humor, It goes about as well as one might expect, Stakeout, Team Mustang schtuff, Tumblr Prompt, Vato tries to be a hero, mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 07:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17700107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_Hoopy_Frood/pseuds/That%20Hoopy%20Frood
Summary: All things considered, it was not the most auspicious of starts...





	I Need to See a Man About a Lieutenant

**Author's Note:**

> A tumblr prompt from ages ago...

He inhaled. The motion was exaggerated and probably unnecessary, but in that moment, he found he didn’t particularly care. “You smell like a distillery,” he said, a bit sniffy.

“Well, it’s an open bar… what did ya expect?”

“The Lieutenant _specifically_ gave us orders–”

“The Lieutenant ain’t here, is she?”

The man sighed to stifle a groan. He wanted something desperately to disappear into the floorboards. Unfortunately, he was six foot four, silver-haired, and about as inconspicuous as a maypole.

“She’ll cite you if you’re not careful, sir.”

“I’ll cite _you_ if you don’t shuddup, Falman. And don’t call me _sir_.”

Newly-promoted Warrant Officer Vato Falman looked down at his companion, a heavyset man with gingery red hair and a permanent scowl. Second-Lieutenant Breda fixed Falman with a look that could strip the paint from the wall. The inebriated flush in his cheeks did nothing to mitigate the potency of Heymans’s glare. In an effort to avoid the ire of his superior, Vato found his attention drifting to the rest of the room.

Insofar as high-end parties went, this one was relatively tame. Inconsequent polite conversation buzzed in his ear. Women in expensive frocks and men in bespoke suits milled about the place, pulled along sedately by the flow of shifting conversation. Despite the fact his companion had made several trips to the food table and several more to the bar, neither the young man holding a tray of canapes nor the woman washing wine glasses was giving Breda the stink-eye. On the contrary, they kept glancing his way rather expectantly.

Falman wondered if Heymans had gotten her number. He wondered if he’d gotten _both_ their numbers…

“Where _is_ Lieutenant Hawkeye?” Vato asked, suddenly keen to derail _that_ particular train of thought. He peered across the sea of heads for a familiar blonde mop of hair.

“That’s  _Elizabeth_ to you, dumb ass.” Heymans grunted. “Honestly, Vato, for a smart guy, you can be downright thick sometimes.”

“Social mixers hardly fall within my purview as a soldier! Besides, my constitution isn’t equipped for this sort of espionage nonsense.”

“If your griping is any indication, your constitution isn’t equipped for much more than filing and crossword puzzles.”

He wasn’t wrong. “Which begs the question, Lieut… _Heymans_ , why I’m here in the first place.”

“Cause the Boss said so. And since the perp is one a’ Roy’s classmates from way back when, the Colonel can’t very well go swanning in here, can he? ‘Specially since we’re tryin’ to bust this guy’s ass.”

“Jean… even _Kain_ is far more cut-out for this type of thing.”

“Yeah, and in any other case I’d be inclined to agree with you.” Heymans’s expression sobered slightly, turning stony, which lead Falman to believe the Second-Lieutenant was not as intoxicated as he would have the rest of the attendees believe. More deception, thought Vato wearily.

“Look,” said Heymans quietly, “there’s been whispers that Aerugo might produce an uptick of their supernote counterfeit bills given the sanctions and pressure put on ‘em recently, but in general, counterfeit money seems to a steady crime that is always goin’ on around Amestris and abroad. Inside skinny says this guy, Tagomi, has been working as an intermediary between the Aerugonian counterfeiters and some shady dealers in Amestris tryin’ to destablise the cenz. Since we already gotta inflation problem after Ishval, and at the rate Tagomi is churning out phoney bills, soon our currency ain’t gonna be worth the paper it’s printed on.”

“This sounds more like a job for the banking system than a couple of soldiers,” noted Falman.

“Central Bank’s been tryna lend money at very low interest, temporarily increasing the effective money supply. But these counterfeiters ain’t timing their counterfeits right. It’s a case where the government is simply superior to the private sector in terms of service delivery. 'Sides, word is Tagomi’s usin’ alchemists for the printing. That makes it the Boss’s problem.”

“Which is why…” Falman’s mouth felt strange forming the word, “ _Elizabeth_ is trying to get close to Tagomi, yes?”

“Right.”

“That still doesn’t explain why _I’m_ here.”

“Plausible deniability.”

Falman frowned. “I’m not sure I follow.”

Breda tapped the side of his nose. “Tagomi is gettin’ kinda cosy with certain higher-ups… we gotta get the evidence for a warrant, but if the bastard smells a rat, we can’t afford to have the paper trail leading right to Roy.”

“Because then Tagomi’s friendlies in the military could have him demoted for libel.” Understanding dawned on him. “You need someone who doesn’t _need_ to keep a record.”

“Exactly. And you, my lanky friend, remember everything. Just keep your eyes peeled and that bony head of yours down and make a note if anything smells stink to you. That way we can just cross-reference your new info with the Boss’s intel later.”

At that moment, Falman caught sight of Lieutenant Hawkeye, nursing a ginger sparkler served in a sherry glass. Like Heymans, the slight sway in her step and blush in her cheeks seemed to affect some semblance of drunkenness rather than the real thing. Falman supposed it had the intended effect… no one was paying Riza much mind, and those who were, he thought, were paying her the entirely _wrong_ sort of mind.

Falman had to acknowledge a certain grave prettiness about her that evening, though such thoughts always made him squirm on account of her being his superior. Her blonde hair, usually worn in a severe hawk’s tail, lay poker-straight along her spine. Her high-backed indigo dress covered just one of her shoulders, leaving the other bare and unencumbered should the Lieutenant feel the need to go for any one of the sidearms Falman suspected she carried about her person. The collar flowed into a tasteful v-neck, a loose fit intended, no doubt, to remove attention from her breasts, with only varying degrees of success, judging by the copious rubbernecking from the far side of the room.

Vato frowned at that.

Though she could be intimidating, and was often stern, rarely joining in the jokes of the other officers, she positively commanded respect. It was as though, to be taken seriously, Riza had consigned herself to becoming more than just their equal… she had to be better and beyond reproach.

And she was.

She could put any one of those ogling old men in the dirt before they’d so much as uttered a syllable.

Unfortunately, Breda elected at that moment to catch him staring, and, to Falman’s horror, interpreted entirely the wrong thing.

“Bad idea,” he said quietly, something akin to pity in the words – at least insofar as Heymans Breda could affect pity. “Hawkeye’s well outta both our leagues.”

“That wasn’t… that isn’t why…” As Falman stuttered, he felt his cheeks reddening until he no doubt he looked as drunk as Breda. “I was just…”

“Yeah, well… _just_ forget about it, yeah? Boss’d have your guts for garters.”

Falman huffed, trying to salvage some of his dignity. “I’m well aware of the policies regarding fraternisation, thank you.” Besides, the Warrant Officer thought, even in his short tenure as archival liaison to one Lieutenant-Colonel Roy Mustang, he had never seen the man in the slightest bit ruffled. Even at the height of stress, the Flame Alchemist’s voice merely took on a huskier drawl, and his idea of hurrying was always to bend his head downward a little as he sauntered, the pace of his footfalls not changing one iota. That was just the way the man was, Falman supposed… born calm. Smooth as plate glass.

Breda snickered. “That’s not _quite_ how I meant it.”

“Then _how_ did you mean it, exactly?”

“You’ll learn one day, big guy.” Breda gave him a well-meaning thump on the back, nearly making Vato tip over, before swaggering towards the bar. Now that Falman was privy to it, the drunken act struck him as being rather showy. But if Tagomi’s people were taken in by it, the Warrant Officer supposed it passed muster.

Speaking of which…

Lieutenant Hawkeye caught his eye again, consequent of her being quite a lot shorter than him and quite a lot, well… quite a lot more eye-catching than very many people in the room.

Not soon after, however… a man, a newcomer, drew Falman’s attention. And he made Vato’s skin crawl.

He had the swagger of someone Falman didn’t have the desire to lock eyes with, let alone cross. His arms seemed thickly-muscled under his grey suit and his white blonde hair so closely cropped that from a distance Vato had mistaken him for being bald. He was smiling at Riza in a way Falman did not much care for, and he stood so close she was cast entirely in shadow.

If something smelled stink, Heymans had said. Well… Falman squirmed in his dinner attire – all of it old and none of it matching, several sizes too small for him – and fiddled with his empty glass. He tried to remind himself not to jump at the slightest sense of unease, to keep a level head. Besides, Riza Hawkeye could handle herself. She was the strongest of all of them. She was the Lieutenant-Colonel’s right-hand man. She was–

Falman didn’t finish the thought as the bald-not-bald man took Riza by the arm and steered her into a back room adjacent to the bar.

Oh, dear.

Breda was nowhere to be seen. Not giving himself time to hesitate, or give over to rational thought of any kind, Falman made a beeline across the room, brushing past party-goers with ease, ignoring the indignant glares left in his wake.

For a moment, the consideration of weapons and angry hostiles and retaliations didn’t cross his mind. Determined to reach Hawkeye, he rested his hand on the rough paintwork of the backroom door and pushed. Rough wooden splinters cut into his palm; shards of black paint crumbled to the floor. The hinges squealed as though trumpeting a warning, one that went entirely unheeded. In the cramped back room, laughter overpowered the low jukebox, crooning in a corner. Conversation swirled in a dirty cloud of smoke, the stagnant stench of cigarettes hidden within the collaboration of mephitic odours. The sharp smell of gin wafted towards the Warrant Officer, like black plumes billowing from the windows of a burning house. There was a hint of sick tainting the fragrance of the room that made him want to void the remnants of his meagre supper.

So surprised were the men by Falman’s unceremonious entrance, it took them a few moments to say something.

“Who the hell are you?!” demanded the bald-not-bald man, Riza still pressed close to his side. Hawkeye stared at him wide-eyed, mouth set in a grim line, but she stayed ominously quiet.

“Well…” Falman knew he couldn’t very well give the man a truthful answer, and the Warrant Officer hadn’t given much thought to what he was going to do provided the men didn’t decide to shoot him on the spot. He had never been very good at improvisation. He felt the back of his neck grow cold and clammy as the right words remain stubbornly elusive. “That young woman…”

The man beside Riza glared across at Falman… not _up_ , Vato realised. They were about the same height, but the hostile had at least thirty pounds on him. “What, you her dad or somethin’?”

“ _Her_ … I beg your pardon?” Falman felt another stutter rising in his throat. His neck burned under his collar. “I’m only thirty seven!”

Riza Hawkeye closed her eyes.

The bald-not-bald man bared his teeth, hands tightening on the Lieutenant’s arms until Falman feared he’d leave marks. “Tryin’ be a hero, are ya?” he sneered. His breath made Vato’s stomach roll. “Or maybe ya just wanted to watch the show, huh big guy?” The other men in the room laughed uproariously.

Falman swallowed – his throat felt as though it’d constricted to the circumference of a broom handle. He tasted bile burning his esophagus. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said quietly, fighting to keep the stammer out of his voice, “just let the young woman go.”

“Well, now, that kinda _is_ askin’ for trouble, old man. I kinda like her.” He pulled Riza’s back flush against his chest. Her lip curled in distaste. “And I don’t take too kindly to people tryin’ to pinch my stuff.”

The smoke twisted in a comically artistic way, forming curls in the gloom, illuminated only by the age-speckled lights. The sweat trickled down Falman’s back, free flowing like condensation on a window pane. An idea occurred to him, then, but it was so horrendously dangerous to both him and Riza, he was tempted to let it die somewhere in his subconscious.

Then one of bald-not-bald’s lackies pulled out a knife, and Vato decided he wasn’t exactly swimming in alternatives.

“You don’t want to hurt her, Eleazer Farr,” he managed through the lump in his throat, trying to sound less terrified than he felt.

The man, Farr, froze. “What…”

“You’re an Aerugonian counterfeiter,” Falman went on without pause or ceremony, “you are forty five years old. Five years ago, you were arrested in South City on suspicion of committing forgery, using fictitious bills, counterfeiting and participating in a criminal conspiracy, according to a news release from the prosecution at the time.”

“Dammit…” growled Farr, turning to his cronies, who had begun to squirm nervously. One of them was sweating almost as much as Falman. “How the hell do you know–”

“You were caught because your press could not replicate the fine lines of each bill exactly. In the case of the hexagons on the cenz notes, the blobs that the printer ended up producing make the light colour of the original bill a much brighter shade. This effect is the very reason for imprinting the lightly-coloured hexagons on the bill in the first place, you see – they make the bill harder to replicate with current printer technology.”

“How the hell do you know any of this?!” demanded Farr, panic turning his voice high and shrill.

“Because,” said Falman simply, “I filed the paperwork.”

“Crap… this guy’s a narc…

“And so’s his girl, probably,” said one of the other men… Falman had to commend him for his clarity of insight.

Riza’s eyes widened, but as her hand went for her gun, Farr shoved her into Vato, sending the pair of them crashing into a heap on the hardwood floor. Falman’s head smacked against the panelling and he tasted blood in his mouth. Hawkeye’s weight on his sternum had knocked the wind out of him. Still, once the sudden dizzy spell had passed, he looked blearily up at his superior, who was in the process of unholstering her pistol.

“Are you all right, Lieutenant?” he coughed, spitting something coppery.

“Nevermind that now, Warrant Officer,” said Hawkeye grimly. “We have bigger problems.”

Vato peeled the back of his head off the splintery floor… it felt like his skull weighed a ton. He expected to find himself staring down the business end of a sawed-off shotgun. Instead, there was nothing but a blank wall and a small, well-concealed crawlspace, from which blew a steady breeze from outside.

Farr and the rest of Tagomi’s men were gone.

* * *

“You’re a moron, Falman.”

And you’re one to talk, Second-Lieutenant Havoc, Vato wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, he kept the ice pack pressed to the side of his head, and allowed himself to feel completely, utterly miserable. The insufferable blonde man grinned impishly, blowing smoke which Falman took pains to fan away.

“I was concerned for the Lieutenant’s safety,” he groused.

“Rule number one, Bishop… Hawkeye don’t need no looking after.” Havoc snorted. “Least of all from the likes… the likes of us.”

 _From the likes of you_ , Falman knew Jean was going to say, but corrected himself at the last minute.

“I suppose you weren’t to know, sir,” said Kain Fuery quietly. Falman appreciated the effort, though recognised its futility all the same. If the bespectacled Sergeant had intended to make Vato feel better, he’d accomplished just the opposite.

Breda grunted from some distance away. “That’s why wewere playin’ it safe, not givin’ everyone all the details. Tagomi’s a slippery fish. He couldn’t risk his guys spillin’ the beans on the whole op so instead of tryin’ to fight anyone they caught snooping around, he just had Sparr and the rest of 'em do a runner.” He kicked a patch of dirty snow in frustration. “We’ve been chasin’ these rats for months now.”

“And now I’ve gone and bungled it,” said Falman glumly. His head throbbed with increased enthusiasm.

“It was an error of judgement on the part of command, Warrant Officer.”

Vato looked sidelong at Lieutenant Hawkeye, who crouched bundled in an officer’s greatcoat… whose, he didn’t know. She surprised him by not looking particularly upset. Just weary. She sat, tired-eyed, her hands slumped over her knees.

“We should have made you aware of the full details. As mission director, the fault is mine.”

Somehow, that just made Falman feel worse.

“Regardless, we have some important intel,” she continued; every eye turned to her as she went on: “We know Tagomi is working with Farr and several other Aerugonian money launderers. Furthermore, Officer Falman may very well have complete profiles of their physical appearances, which we can disseminate to the proper authorities. It will be more difficult for them to slip away this time.”

Havoc grumbled something to the affirmative. Falman supposed it was as close to a grudging apology as he was likely to get.

As the team drifted away, leaving Falman to nurse a bruised head and what he was beginning to suspect was a mild concussion, he felt a shadowy presence drift to his side.

“Not exactly the most auspicious of starts, was it?”

Falman’s shoulders slumped. “No, sir.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Roy Mustang crossed his arms, peering at him through a fringe of dark hair. “Lieutenant Hawkeye told me what happened.”

“I panicked, sir. I am sorry.”

The Flame Alchemist sighed, the puff of air ruffling his bangs and fogging in the cold night. “You shouldn’t go looking for worry, Warrant Officer,” he said quietly, his gaze in some distant place Vato couldn’t reach, “it has its ways of finding us on its own.”

Falman nodded, resisting the urge to rest his chin on his knees. He had always had the least bit idea of the danger of his current occupation, but he’d never imagined spending half his time wondering about his own inadequacy, and the other worrying about his friends. “I’ll… bear that in mind, sir.”

“Glad to hear it.” The melancholia vanished so quickly, had Falman less of a prodigious memory, he would have been tempted to doubt it ever happened. “I expect a full report by tomorrow.”

A curt nod, making the space behind his eyeballs ache. “Of course, sir.”

“Oh… and Falman?”

Squinting slate eyes met wide, earnest obsidian. “Sir?

"Thank you. For going after Lieutenant Hawkeye.”

Before the Colonel could field Falman’s many questions, the man turned to go, leaving his Warrant Officer chilly and bemused, alone in the gently-falling snow.

Vato realised, watching Mustang’s broad blue back, that the Colonel’s greatcoat was missing.

 _You’ll learn one day, big guy_.

In that moment, Falman knew the truth of Heymans’s words.

Though, Vato supposed he hadn’t expected that day to be today.


End file.
